lined the walls, filled with ancient tomes and leather-bound ledgers detailing centuries of royal dominion. I stood near the center of the roo

tiffness in his shoulders that hadn't been there on the balcony. He didn't sit down. Instead,

d, his voice low and uncompromising, "you need to kn

the pages open to a yellowed parchment marked with the royal seal of the Alpha King's li

by a royal ancestor bearing Alistair's family name. The White Wolves have been culle

l. "Your ancestor," I whispered, the words tasting like poison. "He led the massacre. The

empty comfort. He didn't look away from the fury burning in my silver-lit gaze. "My bloodline

ked the palace courtyard. The cool moonlight cut across his sharp pr

my blood. Every king of this line burns from the inside out, our minds fracturing until we become monsters tearing at our own cages. The

cold realization washed over every inch

ain to fuel his pack's dominance, and now the Alpha King was offering me "sanctuary" because his very survival depended on tethering him

ice dangerously quiet as I stepped closer to him. "You didn't bring me he

ssed, violent tension. With a slow, deliberate motion, he reached into his coat,

d, his voice raw, stepping closer until the heat of his body pressed against the space be

deafening crash reverberated through

g up the grand staircase. A frantic, rabidly unhinged roar tore through the stone walls a voice stripped of all reason, screa